Situated in Warwickshire, Newnham Paddox was acquired by the Feilding family in 1433. In the late sixteenth or early seventeenth they built a large, timber-framed house on the land. In 1620, Sir William Feilding, who was married to the Duke of Buckingham's sister, was raised to the peerage as a baron, and in 1622 was created Earl of Denbigh. The family was divided by the Civil War, the Earl adhering to the Crown and his son, Viscount Feilding, fighting with Essex at Edge Hill. The first Earl died as a result of wounds sustained in a skirmish near Birmingham in 1643. On his father’s death, his son was appointed Commander of the Parliamentary Forces in the centre of England.

The Fielding family assembled an important collection of historical portraits, including works by Sir Anthony van Dyck, Balthasier Gerbier, Daniel Mytens and Thomas Gainsborough. Many of these were sold by the 9th Earl of Denbigh at Christie’s on the 1st July 1938, including the present work.

A NOTE ON THE PROVENANCE:

Sir Roy Strong, C.H., F.R.S.L. (b. 1935) is an English art historian, former museum curator, writer, broadcaster, and garden designer. He was made Director of the National Portrait Gallery aged 32, and at 38 Director of the Victoria & Albert Museum, where he stayed until 1987. Sir Roy has published extensively, and is particularly renowned for his knowledge of Elizabethan portraiture, and gardens. In 1971 he married the theatre-designer Julia Trevelyan Oman (1930-2003), and together they created the celebrated gardens at The Laskett, Much Birch, Herefordshire, which Sir Roy has recently gifted to Perennial, the Gardeners' Royal Benevolent Society.